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Monday, May 18, 2015

Colt Buntline Special

Here are some images of LS Models 1/1 scale Colt Buntline Special.

From Wikipedia"The Colt Buntline Special is a long-barreled variant of the Colt Single Action Army revolver that author Stuart N. Lake described in his best-selling but largely fictionalized 1931 biography, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. According to Lake, dime novelistNed Buntline had five Buntline Specials commissioned. Lake described them as extra-long, 12 inches (300 mm)-long barrel Colt Single Action Army
revolvers. Lake wrote that Buntline presented them to five lawmen in
thanks for their help with contributing “local color” to his western
yarns. But modern researchers have not found any evidence to confirm
that Buntline ordered the guns or that Colt manufactured them in that
time period.Lake attributed the gun to Earp, but modern researchers have not
found any supporting evidence from secondary sources or in available
primary documentation of the gun's existence prior to the publication of
Lake's book. After the publication of Lake's book, various Colt
revolvers with long (10″ or 16″) barrels were referred to as "Colt
Buntlines" or "Buntline Specials". Colt manufactured the pistol among
its second generation revolvers produced after 1956. A number of other
manufacturers, such as Uberti, Navy Arms, and Cimarron Arms, have made
their own version of this long-barreled revolver.

Wyatt Earp

The revolver was first described by Stuart Lake in his highly fictionalized 1931 biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal. The extremely popular book turned Wyatt Earp into a "Western superman". Lake's creative biography and later Hollywood portrayals exaggerated Wyatt's profile as a western lawman.

Lake wrote that dime novelist Edward Zane Carroll Judson, Sr., writing under the pseudonym
of Ned Buntline, commissioned the guns in repayment for "material for
hundreds of frontier yarns." Yet Buntline, in fact, only wrote four
western yarns, all about Buffalo Bill and none that mentioned Earp. According to descendants of Wyatt Earp's cousins, he owned a Colt .45-caliber and a Winchester lever-action shotgun.There is no conclusive evidence as to the kind of pistol that Earp usually carried, though it is known that on the day of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, October 26, 1881, he carried an 8 inch (200mm) barreled Smith & Wesson Model 3. Earp had received the revolver as a gift from Tombstone mayor and Tombstone Epitaph newspaper editor John Clum.
Lake later admitted that he had 'put words into Wyatt's mouth because
of the inarticulateness and monosyllabic way he had of talking'.The book later inspired a number of stories, movies, and television
programs about outlaws and lawmen in Dodge City and Tombstone, including
the 1955 television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

Lake conceived the idea of a revolver that would be more precise and
could be easily modified to work similarly to a rifle. According to
Lake, the Colt Buntline was a single-action revolver chambered for .45 Long Coltcartridge. However, it had a 12″ (305mm) long barrel, in comparison to the Colt Peacemaker's 7.5″ (190mm) barrel. A 16″ (406mm) barrel was available, as well.
According to Lake, it had a removable stock that could be easily
affixed through a combination of screws and lead-ins. This accessory
gave the revolver better precision and range, Lake claimed, and allowed
the user to fire it like a rifle. The Colt Buntline was further popularized by The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp television series.

Lake wrote that Ned Buntline commissioned the revolvers in 1876 and
that he presented them to Wyatt Earp and four other well-known western
lawmen: Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman, Charlie Bassett, and Neal Brown. However, neither Tilghman nor Brown were lawmen at that time.
According to Lake, Earp kept his pistol at the original 12″ length, but
the four other recipients of the Specials cut their barrels down to the
standard 7½″ or shorter.

Lake spent much effort trying to track down the Buntline Special
through the Colt company, Masterson, and contacts in Alaska. Lake
described it as a Colt Single Action Army
model with a long, 12 inches (30 cm) barrel, standard sights, and
wooden grips into which the name “Ned” was ornately carved. Researchers
have never found any record of an order received by the Colt company,
and Ned Buntline's alleged connections to Earp have been largely
discredited.

The revolver could have been specially ordered from the Colt factory
in Hartford, Connecticut, as extra-long barrels were available from Colt
at a dollar an inch over 7.5 inches (190 mm). Several such revolvers
with 16-inch barrels and detachable stocks were displayed at the 1876
Centennial Exposition, but these were marketed as "Buggy rifles".
There are no company records for the Buntline Special, nor a record of
any orders from or sent to Ned Buntline. This does not absolutely
preclude the historicity of the revolvers, however. Massad Ayoob writing for Guns Magazine
cited notes by Josie Earp in which she mentioned an extra-long revolver
as a favorite of Wyatt Earp. He cited an order by Tombstone, Arizona,
bartender Buckskin Frank Leslie for a revolver of near-identical description. This order predated the O.K. Corral fight by several months.